


Two More Tails of Terror

by Raccoonfg



Series: Tails of Terror [2]
Category: Zootopia (2016)
Genre: Candy, Gen, Halloween, Horror, Party
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-28
Updated: 2017-10-28
Packaged: 2019-01-25 14:16:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12533460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raccoonfg/pseuds/Raccoonfg
Summary: When a community Halloween party goes awry, Nick and Judy once again find themselves trading bone-chilling tales of terror.





	Two More Tails of Terror

**Author's Note:**

> The following short story was written for /trash/'s Thematic Thursday event; Halloween (10/26/17)

“Nick! Would you cut that out!”

“What? Cut what out?”

“You know darn well,” Judy hissed. “That candy is for the kids, not for you.”

Nick lazily gazed down at his partner from within the head-hole of his long green costume and popped another fun-size candy bar in his mouth.

“’M ch’ckin’ em f’ poi’shun,” he replied through a mouthful of caramel and nougat.

Groaning, Judy shook her head, causing her ears to sway about between the pipe-cleaner halo that was propped up over her brow.

“Nick, we’re supposed to be trading homemade and unwrapped treats for this stuff,” she noted as she gestured to the roomful of costumed children. “Why would it be poisoned?”

Nick shrugged, picked up another piece of candy from the bowl on the table, and started unwrapping it.

“These Halloween child killers get craftier every year, Carrots. Maybe they’re staying one step ahead of us. Give out safe, unwrapped granola snacks that look super suspicious and then ‘wammo’; trick them into swapping it with a poisoned Mares Bar. Only one way to be sure.”

“Oh please,” Judy huffed and slapped the chocolate out of Nick’s paws. “Like anyone is going to tamper with the exact box the ZPD picks.”

“Only one way to be sure,” he repeated and kicked aside the now inedible floor-candy. “Besides,” Nick added while flicking one of Judy’s plastic wings, “weren’t you Miss Candy Apples and Popcorn Balls back on the farm? Why the razor-blade Raisinants paranoia?”

“Well,” Judy hawed as she readjusted the straps of her wings, “the country is… Different.”

“Mm hm,” Nick sanctimoniously hummed, plucking a fresh candy bar, which Judy immediately snatched out of his paws and brazenly unwrapped for herself.

“Anyway, Bogo asked us to come out to this community center and be the ZPD’s face of a safe and happy Halloween, and that’s what we’re gonna do!” And with that, she proudly crammed the sugary morsel into her mouth. “Sho’ th’r!”

Nick didn’t reply, he just stood there with his arms folded over the green fabric of his costume and smugly watched and waited for the inevitable to happen. Seconds later, Judy was coughing and spitting out the chewed remains of the candy bar while Nick’s lips curved up into a wicked grin.

“You’re right, Jude,” Nick snickered, “accepting unwrapped candy can be dangerous.”

“Bleh!” Judy glared up at him as she cleaned her tongue off with that back of her paw. “You picked a coconut one on purpose!”

“Hey, hey! How’s the city’s finest holding up?”

The both of them looked over to see a bespectacled beaver strolling their way, wearing a big, friendly, bucktoothed grin and the tell-tale khaki uniform of a scoutmaster. A pair of fawns dressed as mummies darted around him, joining a cluster of other kits and cubs disguised as all sorts of monsters and mutants.

“Heh heh,” the beaver chuckled as he regained his footing and sidled up to the ZPD’s booth. “Getting pretty lively tonight, isn’t it?”

“Seems like it,” Judy replied as she caught sight of a little girl bunny in a firefighter costume looking her way and gave her a friendly wave. When she looked back, she saw that the scoutmaster was keenly eyeing the candy bowl. “You, uh, can have some if you’d like.”

“Oh, well thank you,” he beamed and immediately started digging his paws through the contents before picking out a few select pieces. “Ooo, you have coconut.”

Nick gave his partner a teasing nudge and remarked “You know, I’m kinda surprised we haven’t been getting many ankle-biters coming our way.”

“I’m not,” the beaver stated nonchalantly and tossed a chocolate in his mouth while the two officers exchanged confused looks. “Oh, you didn’t know?”

“Know what..?” Judy asked.

“This place is right around the corner from the dentist district. Every year they keep their offices open late and trade full-sized candy bars for unwanted treats. I swear, those kids make a killing when they get together enough boxes of unsweetened raisins before reaching this area.”

Nick and Judy just stared at him, gobsmacked, as he chortled to himself while scooping up another pawful of candy.

“Anyway, we’re still real glad you both could come out here tonight. It’s always handy to have a couple extra adults around when these kids get all hopped up on sugar.”

The two of them however did not seem quite so enthused about being spare babysitters for the night, as they both gave him withering looks for knocking the air out of their evening; a gesture that did not go unnoticed by him.

“Now, now,” he said with a reassuring smile, “don’t think of it so badly. It’s Halloween. You’re at a party. You get to dress up.” He then playfully winked at Judy. “By the way, very cute angel costume, Officer Hopps.”

“Oh well thank you,” Judy happily replied, before adding “but, uh, I’m not sure if you’re aware of this, but it’s okay for a bunny to call another bunny ‘cute’, but--”

“Yeah, keep saying that, Carrots,” Nick snarked. “I’ve asked your family. No one cares but you.”

The scoutmaster uncomfortably glanced between them as Judy gave Nick a silent glare while roughly straightening her halo.

After a moment of waiting for the air to clear, he piped up with “And, uh, Officer Wilde, I’m guessing you’re dressed as…” Hesitating, he looked over Nick’s costume from head to toe before making his guess with a sheepish smile. “Some… kind of crazy cucumber?”

Judy immediately started sniggering behind her paws while Nick gave an annoyed sigh.

“I’m a pickle,” Nick flatly answered before turning to his giggling partner. “Why doesn’t anyone get this Jude? I’m dressed as a pickle. My name is Nick. I’m Pickle Ni--”

“Yeah, keep saying that, Nick,” Judy mockingly interjected. “No one cares but you.”

Nick rolled his eyes and defiantly crossed his arms, looking about as imperious as one can be while dressed as a giant gherkin.

“To be fair,” he sniffed, “you have to have a very high IQ to understand my costume.”

“Right… So anyway, I hope that the two of you are in the mood for a little audio-visual fun, because we’ve dusted off the old film projector and will be screening a Halloween classic for the kids.”

Nick’s ears perked up. “A Nightmare on Elk Street?”

“Oh, no, no, no,” the beaver laughed.

Judy quizzically rubbed her chin. “Poltergoats?”

“Nope.”

A broad grin spread across Nick’s muzzle and his eyes shone with glee. “Ermine Scared Stupid?!”

“Who’s scared stupid?” Judy asked with a scrunched up face, earning a slack-jawed look of disgust from her partner.

“Even better than all of those,” the scoutmaster said cheerily as he waved his paw towards the senior ranger scouts who were busy setting up the projector and screen. “It’s the Carrot King, Charlie Bruin!”

“Oh great,” Nick deadpanned, “the valium of children’s cartoons.”

“Yup, can’t beat a classic,” chirped the scoutmaster. “So feel free to grab yourselves a spot in the back row. We’ll be starting soon.” And as he sauntered off to help his troop with corralling the rest of the hyperactive children, the room’s lights began to dim, both preparing for the screening as well as setting a more appropriate mood for a Halloween night.

Nick and Judy simply shrugged at each other, both figuring they might as well make the best of the evening. So Nick grabbed the half-full bowl of candy and the two of them plopped down on the floor behind a quartet of joeys dressed as the cartoon heroes known as the Delinquent Degenerate Desperado Dugongs.

“But seriously, Carrots?” Nick whispered while fidgeting about to find a way to sit comfortably in his pickle costume. “You’ve never seen an Ermine movie? Not one installment of the comedic craftsmanship of Jim Varmit?”

“Nick, I honestly don’t know who you’re talking about.” Judy discreetly shot back. “You have to accept that not everyone gets these obscure references you keep making.”

“Obscure?!” Nick was so incensed that he could barely keep his voice down. “Carrots, he saved Halloween, Christmas, a summer camp AND broke out of jail. That stoat was the hero of a generation!”

The children in front of him immediately turned around and sternly shushed Nick for his outburst. He wasn’t used to taking guff from kids - or at least real ones - and was about to give them something to shush about when Judy leaned into view with her eyes narrowed and a finger firmly pressed to her lips.

“Fine,” he grumbled under his breath and quietly sulked as the projector whirred into action.

It was about as dull as Nick remembered it to be the last time he had to sit through this cartoon as a kid. Just a near endless loop of a cartoon bear and rabbit walking through yellow and orange watercolor backgrounds, carrying an oversized pumpkin while a piano and pizzicato bass played the same four notes over and over.  
And over.

“Good grief,” Nick muttered as he unwrapped a Gekkers bar. “This candy is the only thing keeping me from a jazz induced coma.”

By the time the film got to the scene where the bear’s friend Lepus started going on about the Carrot King and how it gave gifts to loyal rabbits, something started to seem ‘off’.

The dialogue and animation, as cheaply made as it was, began to erratically slow down and speed up, reminding Nick of the time Flash got into a trivia argument with a squirrel at the last DMV office mixer. The issues started to get worse and worse as the film progressed, with the characters starting to vibrate and jerk all over the projection screen until everything suddenly went white and then dark, followed by a loud popping noise.

The scoutmaster rushed over to the malfunctioning projector as it started sparking. A small plume of smoke rose from the smouldering film reel while he scrambled to unplug its extension cord, but it was too little too late and the room full of kids gasped when the top of the machine caught fire.

Always quick to act, Judy sprung up from her seat, ripped the cape off of a nearby vampire, and flung it over the projector, smothering out the flame.

“That was some quick thinking there, Officer Hopps,” the scoutmaster said with a hearty clap on Judy’s back, knocking her wings askew.

“Heh. Well, don’t thank me. Thank Prop’ 1138 for requiring over-the-counter costumes to pass an open-flame test.”

While swiftly bribing a now upset and partially costumed bat pup with candy, Nick sardonically added “Yup, nothing says ‘boo’ like asbestos.”

As the room’s lights brightened back up again, the senior scouts wheeled away the toasted projector, much to the dismay of the children in attendance.

They moaned, groaned, whined and jeered, looking like a motley horde of revolting ghouls in their mishmash of festive costumes. And at the center of it all was the old beaver, who waded through the petulant crowd and gestured with both paws for everyone to settle down as he made his way to the front of the audience. By the time he reached the end and stood in front of the now blank projector screen, he gave a loud whistle through his buck teeth, immediately silencing the room.

“Okay, okay,” he addressed the crowd in a calm tone. “I know you’re all disappointed. I am too.”

He then made an unusual gesture towards one of the senior scouts, who immediately saluted and dashed off into a nearby utility closet.

“But we in the Ranger Scouts believe that any slip-up is just an opportunity for innovation.”

As if on cue, the scout ran right back out of the closet and up to the scoutmaster, handing him a large metal flashlight.

“Sometimes that means coming up with something new, but other times you have to rely on old tricks.”

Turning to another one of the scouts, the beaver made a pinching motion with his paw and after a curt nod, the scout marched over to the dimmer switch on the wall and brought the lights back down to a moody darkness. Even darker than before.

And then with a soft click, the scoutmaster’s face was illuminated from below by the flashlight, distorting his face and casting a long sinister shadow on the white screen behind him.

“Now how about everyone make themselves comfortable,” he said in a low and mischievous voice. “But not too comfortable, because I have a little campfire favorite I’d like to tell you.”

Like a veteran showman who knew when to milk an audience’s anticipation, he paused and looked around the room, gazing over every single wide-eyed kid and kitten until the time was just right to continue.

“It’s called The Babysitter.”

 

* * *

 

Tammy was a young squirrel like any other.

She went to school. She had best friends. She gossiped about boys.

And she liked buying things.

New clothes, flashy makeup, trendy music, the latest phone… Things that the other girls at school had and she needed; if she was going to fit in.

But her parents couldn’t always afford everything she wanted, so like any other squirrel her age she got a part-time job.

As a babysitter.

She was very good at the job and grew to be quite popular among the parents on her block in Little Rodentia, watching their children while they were off doing what adults did when they were free of their kids; like going out to dinners, or parties, or couples therapy.

For her, it was a piece of cake. Most of her charges were still infants, so it was only a matter of bringing a book or her homework and keeping an ear out for crying and fussing.

So on one particular night, she had no reason to worry when Mr. and Mrs. Spiegelman, the mice who lived down the street, asked her to watch over their litter for the evening.

“I really appreciate that you’re able to come out tonight,” Mrs. Spiegelman said to Tammy as the couple got ready to leave. “We almost never get an evening to ourselves, and tonight is half-price the Old Stone Cellar’s buffet. My Artie would never let me hear the end of it if we missed that. I swear, the way he eats you’d think he’s half hamster.”

“Don’t worry, Ma’am,” assured Tammy. “Your kids are safe with me.”

“Well if anything happens, don’t hesitate to call us on our cell, okay?”

And with that, the two mice kissed their children goodnight and waved to Tammy as they hurried out the door.

Despite having to look after a dozen baby mice, things went pretty well. She made sure each one was fed their standard dinner of a kernel of corn, a single pea and a crumb of bread per child, which they all nibbled on as quietly as- well- as mice do. And once they were all finished she washed their faces, checked their diapers, and diligently got to work tucking them in together in the large crib that they all shared.

As soon as the last of their little black peepers had closed shut and she was satisfied that they had all dozed off to sleep, Tammy went into the living room and cracked open her latest reading assignment for her English class.

Some time later, while she was struggling to stay awake in the face of pages and pages of tedious metaphors and unhelpful cliff notes, the phone suddenly rang.

Instinctively, Tammy thought for a moment that it was the Spiegelmans calling to check up on their kids, but then the odd part struck her. They always called her on her own cell phone, but this time it wasn’t her phone that was ringing, it was theirs; the solitary land-line phone that sat in the living room.

At first she ignored it. After all, it wasn’t polite to answer someone else’s phone while you were a guest in their home. But the problem was that it just kept ringing and ringing, and it appeared that the Spiegelmans didn’t own an answering machine or use any sort of voicemail service, because even after five rings it just kept going and going.

Tammy hoped that maybe whoever was calling would take a hint and hang up, but as it persisted on and on, she began to get worried. Both about it being a possibly important call and also about it potentially disturbing the litter’s sleep.

A dozen calm and sleepy mice she could handle, but twelve startled and cranky ones was an entirely different matter.

So after the umpteenth ring, she picked up the handset quietly said ‘hello’.

But there was no answer on the other end.

Only silence.

So she spoke again. “Yes, hello?”

But still nothing came in reply.

Figuring that it was maybe a faulty connection, she replaced the handset and returned to her books.

However, as soon as she settled her tail over the back of her chair the phone started ringing again.

This time she immediately got up and answered the line. But before she could ask who was calling, the handset’s speaker erupted in a loud, heavy breathing.

Whoever was on the line was panting directly into her ear with a slow, rugged tempo that sent shivers down her spine and straight down to the end of her tail.

Disgusted by the perverse noises that come from the caller, Tammy swiftly hung up and shuddered at the idea of whatever sick jollies this mammal was getting out of harassing a young girl like herself.

Once she was done shaking off the heebie-jeebies, she sat back down, cracked her book open again and glanced at the phone, daring it to ring once more.

And like clockwork, the phone sprung to life no sooner than she had resumed reading.

Now well upset by the creep’s persistence, she angrily stomped over and ripped the phone from its cradle.

“Just who do you think you are?” she hissed into the handset.

But the answer that came was still the same heavy breathing as the last time, only now it was growing more beleaguered and strained, with sharp, piercing gasps punctuating every few seconds until there was this sudden, unnatural, undulating noise that she could barely decipher. It was almost like the sucking noise of a plunger at work, but staggered out like some deliberate speech.

No matter what it was, Tammy was having none of it and quickly hung up.

Creep or not, there was something very, very wrong going on here.

But before she could collect her thoughts and figure out what to do about this, the line was already ringing.

So she lifted the handset and dropped it back down, killing the call.

But without pause it rang again, bringing her to repeat the same cold hang-up.

And then it rang again.

And again.

And again.

Before too long she became a flustered mess and nearly ripped the cord out of the phone, ceasing the constant calls once and for all.

But the nagging feeling that somewhere out there, some… “thing” was still dialing that number over and over. The anxiety started to get to her, setting her pacing about the living room with her tail twitching from side to side. In her desperate need to be sure that everything was safe and sound, she checked, rechecked and triple checked the locks on the door while popping into the nursery every time in between to make sure that all the children were accounted for and that their window was firmly clasped shut.

Not even getting back to studying set her at ease. The book jittered and shook in her unsteady grasp as she constantly darted her eyes over to the dormant phone, expecting it to erupt into a cacophony of maddening ringing at any moment.

Realizing how much of a nervous wreck she was growing into, Tammy knew that she had to reach out to somebody- anybody- to reassure her and make her feel secure. But she couldn’t call the parents; she might never get another babysitting job from them again if they thought she couldn’t handle a prank caller or whatever was going on. And the cops were out of the question, as she heard once that they won’t trace a call unless if there was an actual threat being made, and even then, if they did help, the Spiegelmans would still end up finding out, and she’d still be on the hook for freaking out.

No, Tammy unfortunately knew there was only one thing she could do, and that was face it head-on.

Slowly, she rose from her seat, crept over to the unplugged cord, and reconnected it to the phone.

Instantly it sprung to life with its ringing and Tammy stared at it with her paw hovering over the handset as it rang.

And rang.

And rang.

And then with a light click, she picked it up, took a deep breath, pressed the speaker to her ear and opened her mouth to finally give the caller a piece of her mind.

But before the words could come spilling out, her ears were filled with a frightening new sensation of noise like never before.

The depraved breathing from before was now replaced with a low, wet churning noise that gurgled and squelched like a boot stuck in thick mud. A long, rumbling gurgle reverberated over the moist droning and swelled up into a hallow groan that ebbed and flowed through the fleshy noises. The very sound of it turned her stomach and made the words she had prepared die in her mouth.

And as she continued listening, frozen in place by the abnormal utterances that slithered into her ear, she could start making out something far worse, far more unnerving than all the heavy breathing and soft smacking she had been subjected to so far.

Drowned out by the sloppy racket, was the unmistakable muffled sound of voices.

Several voices. All of them unintelligible and yet undoubtedly shouting and crying out in distress. She desperately tried to make out what they were saying - what had them in such a panic - but it all came through so faintly and dampened that it was like she was hearing them from under water.

The phone shook in her paws as she struggled to make sense of it all, but as the noises grew more and more indiscernible, a sharp, sizzling sound started to grow and grow like the entire scene was being swallowed whole by television static. And as the high pitched hissing reached a crescendo, it all just suddenly…

Stopped.

The phone line went silent and Tammy was left alone in the room with a quiet void, still holding the phone by her ear until it finally started rapidly beeping to indicate that the connection was severed.

In a state of shell-shock, she calmly placed the handset back on the cradle and apprehensively watched the phone, waiting for it to spring back to life with more of its insistent ringing.

But nothing else came.

The phone sat there, dead as a doornail.

Feeling like she had aged a hundred years in the last hour, Tammy shuffled over to her chair and slumped down, caught between the relief that maybe it was all over and the fear that it wasn’t.

Suddenly, a tingling sensation crawled over her hip and she leapt straight in the air, barely catching a yelp in her mouth.

When she jerked her head to her leg, expecting some black, festering creature to be clinging to her, she realized that it was simply just her cell phone, rumbling in her pants pocket.

Trembling, she pulled out the vibrating phone and looked at the screen.

Tammy’s blood went cold at what the display said.

It was an unknown caller.

The phone rhythmically pulsed in her paw as she gawked at it, wide-eyed.

Could it be possible that whoever - whatever - was calling had now moved on to targeting her own phone? Was this what she had to deal with from now on; some monstrously disturbing noises chasing her from number to number?

Her twitching finger extended over the rejection button on the screen, poised to expel the caller and hide behind her voicemail. But the temptation of knowing if she was right or wrong was far too great to ignore. Like a child told that a candlelight will burn them, she had to put her paw over it to know for sure.

So she swallowed the lump in her throat, pressed ‘answer’, and quivered as she brought the phone up to her ear.

“H-hello,” she croaked.

“Tammy? Is something the matter?”

To her surprise, it was the voice of Mrs. Spiegleman.

“Your phone kept ringing. I was worried that something had happened.”

“O-oh, no. Not at all Mrs. Spiegleman. Everything is fine,” Tammy lied.

“Well that’s good then. Listen, I know this is coming up at the last minute, but would you be able to stay there longer than you agreed? Just a few more hours until my sister drops by?”

“Uh, s-sure, I can do that,” Tammy replied, and then asked “Sorry, you said your sister was coming by?”

“Yes,” the mother sighed. “It turns out that me and Artie will be spending the night at the hospital.”

“You’re at the hospital? Did something serious happen?”

“Well, leave it to my Artie to spoil an evening out with his big mouth. Around when he was having his third plate from the buffet he started getting this funny feeling. We thought it was just gas and needed a good thumping on the chest, but then it got worse and worse and his stomach started cramping up something awful. It was so bad that the restaurant staff had to call for an ambulance. Made a whole scene. Anyway, we just got out of ultrasound and they found that he accidentally swallowed something that was causing the problem, so they’re keeping him overnight and operating tomorrow.” Mrs. Spiegleman paused in her rambling to bitterly chuckle. “And you wouldn’t guess what my husband managed to gulp down with all that food he kept piling on. I’ll give you a hint; it’s why I’m calling you from a payphone.”

But Tammy didn’t need to guess.

After everything she had been through that evening, she already knew.

The calls were coming from inside the mouse.

 

* * *

 

“Aww!”

“Boooo!”

“Well, you can’t blame me for trying.” The scoutmaster impishly grinned at the audience of heckling children and then turned the flashlight towards the small crowd. “Would anyone else like to give it a shot?”

The various parents and chaperones in the back glanced around and cleared their throats and they knew better than to subject themselves to the scornful criticism of children.

“I’ll do it!”

Judy, on the other hand, did not.

“Gonna tell them about the time you hung out with a friendly ghost, Carrots?”

“Pfft,” Judy rolled her eyes at Nick and bounced up from her seat on the floor. “I think I can tell when an audience needs something edgier, Nick.”

With a playful smirk, Nick snorted at her.

“What? You don’t think I’m up for it? Too ‘cute’ for you?”

“Not at all, Jude,” Nick shrugged, “Your mom showed me all your grade-school plays, remember? It’s just that without a ketchup bottle to do your little blood shtick I don’t think you can cut the mustard with this crowd.”

“Hah. Relish it while you can, pickle boy, because this bunny has a few more stories from back home that’ll make your fur crawl.”

Judy then proudly skipped her way to the front of the room, accepted the flashlight from the scoutmaster and turned it on herself. The shadow she projected onto the screen stretched out the silhouette of her angel costume and long ears, twisting them into the gnarled visage of a winged demon with pointy horns.

“Out in the country, you hear a lot of strange tales,” she said to the roomful of children in a somber voice. “Some of them are so strange that you can never tell if they’re true. And sometimes you can only hope that they’re not.”

Judy paused to draw out the same effect of anticipation that the scoutmaster employed at the start of his story, but it only undercut the mood she was setting as the light gleamed off of her lopsided incisors while she gleefully grinned at the room.

“This is one of those tales, which I like to call The Family Farm.”

 

* * *

 

As far as rabbits go in Bunnyburrow, Mr. Mills was one of the most unsuccessful farmers in the bunch.

He had inherited the farm from his father, as the land had been passed down from generation to generation. But while the past patriarchs of the Mills brood had each been pretty accomplished with the art of the plough, he could barely grow a patch of carrots that didn’t look like anything other than a pawful of sickly toothpicks.

His cauliflower came out like golf balls.

His corn was all ears and no cobs.

And only when he was lucky did he find peas in his pods.

Having grown up with all the other farmers in the county, everyone was all friendly smiles and kind words to his face, but behind his back, they were laughing.

Even his own marriage was affected by his weak green thumb. They were high school sweethearts and had started a litter as soon as they were wed, but within a year of him taking over the farm the neighbors could hear the two of them bicker and argue on a daily basis.

All that failure and alienation gave him so much grief, and as it went, he took it out on his family in the way of driving them harder and harder to help him turn things around. It was said that if they were old enough to walk, Farmer Mills would put his children right to work in the fields.

But it did him little good.

Each year he’d work his family to the bone, from spring to fall.

And each year they’d show up at Bunnyburrow’s annual harvest festival with the saddest crop you ever did see and walk away with nothing to show for it but shame.

Some said that you could see it in his eyes that something, someday, was going to break.

It was on one blustery summer’s night that his neighbors could hear Mills and his wife fighting again. They couldn’t quite make out what it was about - they seldom did - but on that evening their screaming and shouting was the worse it had ever been. Made the neighbours real glad when things finally went silent. Though if they knew different then what they did later, they would have felt differently about it.

About a day or two later, the neighbor's wife came by the Mills farm to ask Mrs. Mills for a few pointers on a sewing project she was working on, as the two of them used to be in the same sewing circle a while back.

When she asked Mr. Mills if his wife was around, he gave an indifferent shrug and simply said “She’s busy working in the fields,” and went back about his own business, pulling weeds.

Knowing how serious that family was about their farm work, the neighbour’s wife figured it wasn’t worth bothering them about it, so she shrugged as well and made her way back home for the day.

The next day she came by earlier and got the same answer, “She’s busy working in the fields,” so she left again without further interruption.

And the following day? A little bit earlier, but still the same answer. So figuring it was a waste of her time, she let the whole thing pass and figured she’d just ring up her auntie, who was the family quilting champion, four years running, and bother her about it instead.

But before she left, something different caught her eye.

Off towards the field was a bright, healthy, patch of perfectly sized pumpkins.

“Well, Mr. Mills, I really must say,” she remarked with surprise, “that must be the finest bunch of pumpkins I’ve seen in years. And on your property, no less.”

Uncharacteristically, Mr. Mills smiled broadly at the compliment and even more so at the pumpkins themselves.

“Well thank you kindly. I think my old lady deserves most of the credit, but I will admit that I at least helped in tilling the soil a bit.”

“Well whatever you did, keep doing it and maybe your luck will turn around this year.”

“You know what,” Farmer Mills mused, rubbing his chin, “I think I will.”

And as time passed, his neighbors indeed saw a sudden change taking place in the quality of the crops at the old Mills farm. Soon it became the talk of the town, with everyone gossiping and pondering over what he could have possibly done to make such a change.

A new irrigation system?

A change in seed supplier?

More than any guess, most folks in Bunnyburrow figured that perhaps it was just that all the hard work the Mills family put into their farming was finally paying off.

After all, whenever any of them came by to see any of Mr. Mills’ children or kin, they were always told that they were busy working in the fields.

When that year’s harvest festival came around, Mr. Mills was the belle of the ball, with a wide range of beautiful produce on display. For every blue ribbon there was to be had, Mr. Mills won them all. And despite the sleepless, baggy eyes that he had from the countless hours of work he put into it all, he never looked happier than he did on that day.

But eventually, during all the evening festivities that followed the day’s exhibitions, one of the farmers asked him something that everyone at some point wondered, but never thought to bring up.

Why didn’t the rest of his family come out to join the festival?

And without blinking, Mr. Mills just said the same thing as always.

“They’re busy working in the fields.”

It was about then that people started to get suspicious.

As the night grew old, the other farmers got together and whispered among themselves about how odd it all seemed that on the day of his triumph he spent it all on his lonesome and didn’t share the glory with his wife and kids who slaved day in and day out to make it happen.

Eventually, one of the farmers brought up something that had been nagging at the back of his mind for quite some time.

Every time someone came by to see anyone but Mr. Mills, they were busy in the fields.

But has anyone ever seen any of them actually working out there?

The question hung heavily in the air as they all looked among themselves and found that no one could say if they ever did.

It was then that they had agreed that they would get to the bottom of it.

When midnight had passed and the moon lit the fields in a soft blue glow, the farmers snuck into the old Mills farm while Mr. Mills was fast asleep.

As it were, everything seemed perfectly normal and ordinary. No different than any of their own farms.

One of them broke off from the group to test a rumor that used to get around; about how the Mills’ had been using some brand new, state of the art tools to get better results.

But when he returned, he had to admit that the family had clearly been using the same old tools as always. In fact, they seemed a bit beat up and chipped. And covered in a funny smelling rust.

Not wanting to leave without any answers, the lot of them decided to gather those tools and use them to dig up a patch of the soil, figuring that maybe he was using some fancy sort of fertilizer that he didn’t want the rest of the county to know about and beat him at his own game.

So they picked out a fresh spot that the Mills’ seemed to have recently tilled and sowed, and started digging.

The earth was definitely moist and rich; a quality they already felt jealous of as they dug deeper into the dirt. But as they turned over the soil, they couldn’t really make out any sort of fertilizer mixed in like they had expected.

And so after a few feet down, they started poking and prodding their shovels, trying to make hide or hair out of the whole thing, when suddenly one of them struck something hard.

The lot of them shared a puzzled look and immediately started jabbing and stabbing that spot, guessing that it was some kind of root or something that had grown out into the area.

Whatever it was, it stunk.

Eventually one of them finally managed to wedge his spade enough to break it free and quickly pulled it up for everyone to get a good look.

Some people say that on this evening, every one of them, brown, grey or tan, had their fur turn white at the shocking discovery of what they had dug up.

Farmer Mills’ secret was never a secret.

They were told what it was all along.

He had put his family to work.

In the fields.

 

* * *

 

Judy silently surveyed the room for a reaction, and though the children only blinked at her, she could see that the adults in the room looked positively creeped out that such a cute little angel could tell something as gruesome as that; the Scoutmaster included.

But all the more satisfying for her was Nick, who solemnly nodded and gave her an approving thumbs-up.

However, the moment of accomplishment was soon over, when one of the Desperado Dugongs sitting in front of Nick piped up.

“I’ve seen scarier things on the mayor’s Chitter feed!”

Judy’s ego was immediately deflated.

“When are we going to hear anything really scary?”

“Are they going to fix the movie?

“These plots are shallow and predictable.”

Her shoulders sagged and the flashlight hung low in her paws as Judy was beaten under the weight of the peanut gallery. If she had asked if anyone wanted to go next, it was barely audible in the midst of the complaining.

And while it was too much for Judy to take, it was also too much for Nick to stand.

“A pickle’s gotta do, what I pickle’s gotta do,” he firmly muttered under his breath and stormed his way to the front of the room, claiming the flashlight for himself.

Not quite sure what to do or say, Judy simply shuffled aside as Nick gave her a reassuring nod and smile before turning to the audience with the flashlight poised under his mouth like a microphone.

“Alright then, kids and kiddies,” he bellowed in a falsely cheery tone that dripped with venom. “You want something to really dig your teeth into? Well your Uncle Nick has a yarn to spin for you.”

“Why should we be scared of a fox dressed as a zucchini?” demanded the nitpicking Dugong.

“Zucchini? Huh.” Nick clicked his tongue dismissively. “Big word for a kid who can’t get his friends to properly organize a group theme. What do you have there?” he asked as he made an exaggerated squint at the four Desperado Dugongs. “A Duchamp, a Tzara and TWO Dalis? Don’t think none of us noticed that two of you are wearing the same color bandanna. Nobody could agree on being Ernst? Please.”

The four of them tucked their heads into their shoulders in shame as the rest of the children turned and stared at them accusingly.

“Now as I was saying…”

Nick turned the flashlight back on and leaned in close to it, creating a devilish figure on the screen that was only matched by his own frighteningly red face, which was peeled back into a wide, toothy sneer that Judy hadn’t seen on him since the day they fooled Bellwether in the museum.

“This is a little story I like to call,” Nick growled, “The Axe Murder of Chainsaw Creek.”

 

* * *

 

It was a cool and moonlit night.

Which wasn’t very surprising for Nick and Judy, because it was exactly that way when they first entered the community center, so there wasn’t any reason to expect any different when the scoutmaster hurriedly ushered them out.

“Well, it was real nice for the both of you to come out and show how the ZPD can contribute to community spirit,” he said in a fluster, “but I think it might be time for the both of you to get back to patrolling the streets and keeping us safe.”

“Aww,” Nick pouted. “But there were still three more camp counselors left to kill off. Are you sure you don’t want to hear about what happens with the harpoon I foreshadowed in the first act? You know what they say about Chekhov’s harpoon gun.”

“No I don’t, and I don’t think I would like to,” the beaver replied in a huff and gave the two of them one last shove out the door. “Good night.”

And with that, he pulled the pulled the door shut, leaving the two of them alone on the stoop as a familiar mellow jazz tune wafted from inside.

“Well gosh darn it,” Nick mockingly proclaimed, “and just when they fixed the projector too.”

He looked down at Judy for some sort of approving chuckle or smile, but instead found her staring up at him in annoyance.

“You blockhead,” she snorted and started walking down the sidewalk towards the nearest subway station, with Nick quickly following her.

“Did I go too far?”

“Too far? Nick, after what you had happen to the second counselor, I don’t think I’ll ever look at fly fishing the same way again.”

“You’re into fly fishing?”

Judy shrugged. “I have a life outside of you.”

“Do tell.”

“Oh! Officer Hopps! Officer Wilde!”

The two of them stopped at the sound of the familiar voice and turned around to see a pair of otters standing there, smiling and waving in their direction.

“Mr. and Mrs. Otterton,” Judy finally exclaimed after recognizing them under their unusual attire.  
Mrs. Otterton was dressed like some sort of garish chorus-line girl, wearing a gold sequined waistcoat and matching top hat, while Mr. Otterton on the other hand was wearing a plain overcoat and a black frizzy wig.

“Fancy meeting you here,” cooed Mrs. Otterton. “Me and Emmitt were just on our way to the theater when we spotted you from across the street.”

“It’s true,” Mr. Otterton chuckled, “I said, ‘why I recognize that angel and expired sausage anywhere!’”

Judy suppressed a chuckle while Nick dejectedly flattened his ears.

“So did you two just come from a party?” asked Mrs. Otterton.

“Kinda. Me and Nick were just at an event at the community center.”

“The community center?” Emmitt repeated in surprise.

“Uh, yeah,” Nick slowly nodded. “Why?”

“Well the community center… Why it burned down twenty years ago.”

The two of them gave each other a confused look before gawking back at Mr. Otterton.

“Yes, very tragic,” he continued. “Twenty years to the day, in fact. There was a small gathering of children organized by the local ranger scouts troop. Candy, games, and ghost stories, all that. But then there was an accident and the whole building went up in flames, trapping them inside. They all died, every one of them. So, so tragic…” Emmitt shook his head. “The fire department found the cause when they went through the remains on the following day. It turned out that they were screening an old cartoon when the projector went faulty and started an electrical fire.”

Unable to cope with what they were hearing, Nick and Judy continued to gape at Emmitt with their eyes as wide as can be and their jaws practically dragging the ground.

“Oh Emmitt,” Mrs. Otterton tutted and playfully slapped her husband’s shoulder. “They’re talking about the next one that was built four years ago.”

“The one around the corner from the dentist district?”

“Well of course!”

Alleviated of the fear that they were caught in one of their own ghost stories, the partners heavily sighed in relief.

“Hah, my mistake,” Mr. Otterton laughed.

“Honestly.” Mrs. Otterton rolled her eyes and gave to officers an apologetic look. “Anyway, we’re just on our way to the midnight screening of the Ringtail Horror Picture Show. We go every year in costume, as you might have guessed.”

She then jokingly struck a pose.

“I usually wait until we’re in the theater to show off mine,” Mr. Otterton said as he started unbuttoning his overcoat, “but if you’re curious…”

“Nooo,” Nick and Judy quickly said in unison, stopping Emmitt short of revealing the black corset and fishnet stockings he wore underneath.

“Well if you change your mind, they still have tickets at the window.”

“We’ll, uh…” Judy gave a sideways glance while she looked for the right way to put it. “We’ll think about it.”

And with that, the two pairs gave each other another friendly round of waving before the otters waddled off in the direction of the theater.

“So what do you think, Carrots,” Nick said while watching them walk away. “Wanna yell tired jokes at a bad musical with a room full of cross-dressing nerds?”

“Truthfully? I’d rather hear how your story was supposed to end.”

“Okay,” Nick nodded and resumed their trek towards the subway. “We have a long trip ahead of us.”

As he cleared his throat, Judy took his paw and trotted alongside him.

“The remaining counselors thought that they were safe when they saw that the crazed axe murder’s axe was still embedded in their dead friend’s torso with the handle snapped in half, but little did they realize that he knew about the harpoon gun they had hung over the mantle place in the first act…”

“What animal is he anyways? I forgot if you said it.”

“…A yak.”

“A yak with an axe?”

“Well a yak with a harpoon gun now, try to keep up.”

“Sorry.”

“Where was I? …Oh right. So when the horny buck and doe counselors thought it was okay to sneak off to the woodshed to have sex, they didn’t expect the sort of ‘penetration’ they had ‘coming’.”

“Oh, nice, a double-double entendre.”

“I know, right? So anyways, there they were, all naked…”

And so Nick continued to spin his exploitative tale of sex, murder and a surprising twist involving both a long lost twin and an ancient buffalo curse while they walked together into the cold, dark Halloween night, paw-in-paw.

An angel and her pickle.


End file.
